Hurt

Before I get tripped up in the length, magnitude, and etymology of that word, like the clichéd voice-over intro of a bad indie movie, I pause to admit what I often ignore, that I am hurt. I have been hurt. I am still hurt. I have hurt others. And it is unlikely that I will ever be able to move past that simple fact.

I know no one reads this blog. It is that assurance, that no one will ever know of this place or read these words, that I put this all out into the world in the hopes that the hurt might lessen some.

I spent the better part of my first 22 years of life trying to get my father to love me. A waste of time, I'm sure anyone would agree. Life isn't truly lived if it's spent on someone else's terms, but when you're a child, that kind of logic never really sinks in. It's black and white. You have a father, he hurt you, and then he left. When people love you, they don't hurt you and they don't leave. If he left, that means not only does he not want to stay, but he doesn't care that you want him to.

I don't know how to respond to people who tell me I need to get a boyfriend, get married, and settle down. I think if they could understand how much time I have wasted on one single, solitary man, they wouldn't think me so capable of what every other girl my age seems to be able to do. I don't want to fall in love. I don't want to fuck someone who can decide in a few years that I no longer mean anything to them. I don't want to be at the mercy of someone else and their romantic whims.

Right now, my father is depressed. He seems to have realized that some of the things he's done were wrong, that he's been blind. That is no comfort to me. Instead of facing reality and choosing to embrace what he did, he lets it consume him. Once again, it's all about him. I want to make him happy and if I knew how, I would. It's the one thing I can't seem to stop myself from doing: trying to make everyone happy.

God has blessed me beyond measure, and yet, when I look at this world, I can't help but feel alone with God, as if no one else knows who I am or cares. I know that no one else will know me and love me as much as God could. But sometimes, I think it would be nice if others could see a glimpse of the burden I carry and just acknowledge it. We could walk together maybe. That would be nice, I think.

Trudge

I'm not a very healthy person, physically or emotionally.

I constantly undermine my own legitimacy as a human, whether by ignoring the good that others see in me or talking about things that I don't really care about to avoid having an honest conversation that would actually matter. In so doing, I turn myself into a person even I don't like.

My body decided that, at the ripe old age of 22, my peak has passed. My body sucks at being a body. I am a doctor's dream patient. With everything that's wrong with me, he'd be a millionaire in no time, even faster were it not for my medical insurance. I've got von Willebrand's disease, so my blood is too thin. My ears are infected with otitis exertna, making ear infections and headaches inescapable. My allergies come straight from hell and a day that I can breathe is practically a miracle with the wacked-out asthma I enjoy. My particular brand of IBS gives me stomach and intestinal spasms and leaves me feeling nauseous pretty much all the time. The nerve damage in my back pains me daily. Eczema covers my skin. In the summer I look like a leper, the rashes covering my arms, legs, and feet. In the winter my hands crack open and bleed, dry and ugly.

For the sake of my happiness, I figured out pretty early that I had to make a joke out of all this or I'd lose the will to do anything other than lay in my bed all day. I don't know how I go on sometimes. I want to do more than I can. I've always wanted that and I just don't know how to want anything else.

Things Could Be Worse...

Four words used to keep me from a sure drop off the edge when life was at its most inexplicable.

"Things could be worse."

I'd say it all the time and the more I said it, the better I'd feel until I was back to my homeostatic "okay." As if, somewhere in the world, there existed a small village of people with crippling medical conditions, dead relatives, terrible fathers, stress, murder, hellish jobs, and rape solely to bolster me in my most selfish moments of despair.

I can see now how I've grown because even as those words flip through my mind in a particularly foul time in my young life, they are immediately amended by God's goodness.

Sure things could be worse. I bet Job said that to himself as he wondered what gruesome plan was unfolding before his eyes. But God is not the God of "things could be worse."

Hmm. Been sinning this whole time and didn't even know it...

Not unlike the beginning of one of the best Journey songs in the Universe...

Yesterday was a good day. It's after midnight and I've got you on my mind... :)